What knowledge is for

As I franticly slave away on my masters thesis (which is on Sufi notions of sainthood in the light–or, in some cases, darkness–of Sociology of Religion), I came across this exquisite and pithy yet encyclopedic summary of Sufism by the great Sufi Quranic commentator Najm al-Dīn Dāya (d. 1254 CE):

The awlīāʾ are the lovers of God and the enemies of their
souls. For welāya is the knowledge of one’s own soul; knowledge of God means
looking upon Him with gaze of love, and knowledge of the soul means looking
upon it with the gaze of enmity, once the veils constituted by the states and
attributes of the soul are removed.
                                     [from "Awlīāʾ" by Hamid Algar in The Encyclopaedia Iranica]

Whew…

P.S. For the unitiated, I should note that when Sufis speak negatively of the "soul", they’re generally referring the "ego" or somethign along those lines.